


Have Faith

by WolffyLuna



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Gen, Graphic Description of Corpses, Grief/Mourning, Númenor, POV Second Person, Religion, Religious Worldbuilding, The Faithful
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-07
Updated: 2019-10-07
Packaged: 2020-10-06 23:02:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,081
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20514932
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WolffyLuna/pseuds/WolffyLuna
Summary: You stand in a crowded ring of Faithful, near the east root of the Meneltarma. It is the first new moon after the Eruhantalë: the Feast of Death, the Feast of the Dead, the Feast of Acceptance.You aren’t meant to recognise the skulls.But you do.





	Have Faith

**Author's Note:**

  * For [75hearts](https://archiveofourown.org/users/75hearts/gifts).

> I hope you like it! 
> 
> It's already in the tags, but it bears repeating here: there is graphic description of dead people, corpses, and skulls in this fic.
> 
> Any resemblance to any _one_ religious tradition or ceremony is unintentional.

You aren’t meant to recognise the skulls.

They are disguised, anonymous—empty vessels made emptier by wearing someone else’s face. They wear the costume, the make-up, the regalia of what ever they were not in life, and become nothing.

You had made the wreath for the skull you held out of copper wire, in the style of the wreaths young country boys wore at spring dances. You saved flowers from spring, tended to and nursed them indoors through winter, and kept them fresh. They wove and danced through the wreath, adding red and pink and white and yellow to the shining orange of the copper. The wreath hid the pin on each side of the jaw, holding it on to the top. It was some of your finest handiwork, even if the skull’s original owner never would have worn it.

You knew the skull’s owner. You still knew who the skull had been, despite the what it wore.

You shouldn’t recognise it.

But you do.

You stand in a crowded ring of Faithful, near the east root of the Meneltarma. It is the first new moon after the Eruhantalë: the Feast of Death, the Feast of the Dead, the Feast of Acceptance.

It is a sad day.

No, you shouldn’t think that. It’s joyful. It is hard and sad, but in the end it is joyful, the promise of death renewed, if not yet fulfilled. You go because you are faithful and Faithful, and one does not miss this if you are either.

You bunch up together, the crowd made even more crowded by the corpses you all bear.

There is a panoply of death around you—corpses in every state, borne by every kind of person, each family or household bring one or a part of one. They are dressed and decorated and prepared, in costumes more ornate and elaborate than most of the living would ever wear before they die. There are mummies, dressed in false finery, a somewhat affectionate mocking of nobles more loyal to the King than to Eru. Articulated skeletons are held aloft, painted and dressed in the clothes of actors, shipbuilders, smiths and scribes. For every full body, there was at least one skull.

An embalmed corpse sits on a chair, carrying a wooden flute. It is dyed a rosy flesh pink, the wrinkles of the face rounded out with wax, wearing the red and white and blue of a palace musician. One was not meant to preserve a body like that, if one was Faithful. What need was there for such preservation, if one did not expect or wish a return? The people bearing the body—family, presumably—look appropriately sheepish. Maybe there is some other branch of the family, less Faithful, who insisted that preservation be done.

You doubt that. But you don’t judge. You recognise the skull you hold, after all.

The body is just a vessel, the corpse is just a vessel, it is what remains on Arda after the soul moves on. They are not the same person they were in life. They are not even a person. Attachment to the body made one fear death. Attaching someone else to the body made one fear it more. So, you dress them as they were not, and break the association. It could have been anybody’s body, each corpse that you held. And, so it was _anybody_. Anybody but what they had been.

Your skull is the mostly finely adorned of all the skulls, if you say so yourself. You aren’t meant to make such judgments, but you are mortal and flawed and can be forgiven for that. (Your husband deserved finery, after all. Even if that skull your husband no longer.)

The crowd parts, and a man is lead in by the hand into the centre. He wears the mask of a corpse—skin painted to be waxy and blood drained, a bearded jaw hanging slack, milky eyes rolled upwards in their sockets. The mask blinds him, and he nearly trips over several clumps of grass as he is guided in.

Where the dead dress as the living, the living dress as the dead. You are here to accept death. Why not accept it by wearing the guise of the dead, as the dead wear the guises of the living? You would be one of them soon enough.

(And there were those people who would not come if they had to show their faces. There were some who_ could_ not come if they were the only ones hiding their faces. And so everyone hid, so those that must hide could camouflage in. They should come, they had to come, everyone was Faithful had to come, this was important—if they could do anything to let more come, they would)

Your face itches under the heavy paint. Your hands itch under the skull they hold.

You are not meant to recognise the man in centre either, not meant to recognise any of the disguised living, but you do. He is Nilûbên, an astronomer and elf friend, who signs all his letters with the Quenya _Isilnúro, _and is the fairest speaker of the Faithful on this side of the Meneltarma. He is quiet and soft spoken speaking one on one, but in a crowd his voice becomes electric. “My friends, all of you, thank you for coming here. Today is a hard day, and there is no shame in that, but it is a _worthy_ one.” His voice dropped on the _worthy, _like it was a whisper between friends that only you and him could hear, even if you all heard it.

You had known him for a while, but you first really met him after your husband died. He came over to your house to give you tea and comfort. (“It’s always hard when someone dies so young, even if it’s good for them. It’s hard for those left behind,” he said. You nodded dumbly, and sipped your tea.)

(Once, when you were gripped with a loneliness so hard it was like frostbite in your lungs, and you needed the warmth and company of someone who would be comforting and not insist that what happened was a _tragedy_ (even if some weak and childish part of you— no_, because_ of that weak and childish part of you that also clamoured that it _was_, that it was terrible and never should have happened), you went to his house.

He let you in, sat you at his table with a warm cup of tea with far too much sugar and a greater excess of milk.

On the other side of that small, rickety wooden table, sat an elf from Avallonë. She was a lover of stars, like him, but more as a mariner than an astronomer. “You really must see the Scorpiontail comet,” she said. “It’s delightful, and I imagine it would help with your observations.”

He sipped his tea. “When will it pass next?”

She bobbed her head side to side, thinking. “Three hundred— three hundred and fifty years from now?”

He smiled, and nodded, and did not do the math.)

But now he paces through the centre of the circle, his second’s arm behind him and ready to lead him away from unsteady ground. “There are those that deny that death is gift, but it is, _it really is_.” His voice chokes with what might have been tears, but was all the more louder for it. He says it like he _believes _it.

(You are almost certain he does, and almost jealous of it.)

“It’s like—it’s like jumping off a cliff, and finding halfway down that you have wings,” he says.

Not that he’d know, having never made a habit of cliff jumping, and being very alive right now.

No, that was unfair. He was facing his fears, he_ had_ faced them and embraced them and if he was struck by lightning right now, he would be ready.

You wish you were ready. You’d been ready once. Ready to go to Eru’s side at your appointed time with good cheer and good grace. And then you’d seen it. You’d seen death—and now you flinch from it.

You grip the skull tighter, and looked at the grass.

Nilûbên speaks, passionate and ready, oh so _ready_, but the words only half land in your ears.

The skull you hold had been—the skull had _belonged_ to your husband. A healer, who’d learned half his art from the elves, and had gone to Middle Earth to use it. A ship sailed into Rommena several years later, bearing his body and half a dozen tales of his death. Exhaustion and sickness and fever and grief, having seen enough of Middle Earth that he wished Eru’s gift early, and disagreement if that sight was for good or ill. He’d lived a good life, if short.

You miss him. You would be at his side at your time.

You aren’t ready yet.

Nilûbên’s speech rose to it’s crescendo. “Fear not death. Fear not grief. All hurts will have their end at Eru’s side.” He held his hand up, like he was trying to grasp the sun. “You just have to hope. You just have to _have faith_.” You could not see it under his mask, but you could hear in his voice he was crying, tears choking in his throat.

You nod. You feel a sympathetic prickle behind your own eyes. He was a good speaker. (And the oboe player playing behind him certainly helped.)

The circle breaks up.

Someone clutches your arm. Gimlîth, her face painted the oranges and greens of corpse mould, and carrying a skull decorated as a judge, looks at you.

“I’m fine,” you say, through sticky teeth.

She nods, not entirely believing, and leads you to the trestle tables.

Wine and sweets and rum and cake pile the tables. It would not be feast without _food_. It would not be a time of acceptance if you could not wash away inhibitions, wash away your fears and ties to the world and your grief and all that held you back. And if you need assistance to do so—well many did. There is no shame.

The oboe player kept playing the same sad tune.

You drain a glass of bitter wine.

The crowd had been subdued during the speech, but something passes through them, sharp and energetic, like static electricity.

It passes through you too. The wine does not get you drunk. The music does not get you drunk, even though it is really trying.

The crowd and the speech turning in your head as you work through it’s meaning, and the speech turning in their heads, and the skull in your hands that is no longer your husband, run through your blood. _That_ gets you drunk.

You are drunk on Eru’s gift.

It is _terrifying_ and _terrific_ and _awful_ and _awesome_. You are going to die. You are going to live on Arda for a finite time, and the pass into—something. You don’t know what. You can’t know what. And if it must happen, if it _should_ happen, you shall embrace that, have hope and have faith—

And you should tell everyone who had not realised. They have to know. They shouldn’t live on in ignorance and fear and fear borne by ignorance. Someone has to tell them. And that someone—it doesn’t have to be you, but who else would it be?

They have to hear. They have to hear the news, hear it and understand and see that it is _good_.

You walk in the direction of the nearby town, towards the square. One by one, others follow you, just as energised Eru-drunk. Not the whole crowd, maybe only five or so, but enough. Nilûbên holds your arm, and you guide him.

Your stride lengthens as you come into the town, come closer to the square, became longer and longer until it becomes a run.

Nilûbên stumbles, but neither of you stop. You don’t want to stop. You can’t stop. You must not stop. 

Your breathing quickens, something runs through your blood and lungs that you could not describe as anything but ecstatic.

You shout, or maybe Nilûbên or Azruzimril does, or maybe it’s all of you all at once, because it quickly becomes all of you—

_Remember you are mortal!_

_Death is a gift! _

_Your body will be but dust! _

_You will be somewhere greater! _

** _Have faith! _ **


End file.
